Review

Few sounds can instantly recall the 1980’s the way Harold Faltermeyer’s theme for Beverly Hills Cop can. The track “Axel F” played on the radio for years and became a huge Billboard hit, which was pretty rare for an instrumental track, and it became a thing of pop culture history. But can you believe that Faltermeyer’s complete score to Beverly Hills Cop remained unreleased until now? There was a hit soundtrack album with songs from the film, but only “Axel F” was on it.

La La Land Records has given soundtrack fans many wish fulfillments over the years, but their wham-bam releases of the score albums of both Beverly Hills Cop and Beverly Hills Cop II (both by Faltermeyer) has surely crossed off two holy grail releases for many fans of these films and their synth scoring cues. The album for the first BHC is just sublime, with 29 tracks (over 60 minutes of music) of one great piece of synthesizer scoring after another. The music is bouncy, upbeat, and fun, with classic sounds you’ll instantly remember if you’ve seen Beverly Hills Cop. The theme is deceptively simple and easy to hum along to, and the rest of the score is good, memorable, and down to earth with rhythmic tunes, and La La Land even added five songs from the soundtrack album as a bonus, including The Heat is On by Glenn Frey, and Neutron Dance by The Pointer Sisters, amongst others.

If you’re a fan of Faltermeyer, who followed in the footsteps of Giorgio Moroder and surely inspired the likes of Hans Zimmer, then this release will be a grail purchase for you. Years later he retrofitted his theme for Kevin Smith’s terrible Cop Out with Bruce Willis, but if you look here, you’ll see where it all began.

This album is limited to only 3000 units (!) so grab one ASAP and just enjoy the heck out of it.

Please visit: www.LaLaLandRecords.com

About the Author

david j. moore

david j. moore is the author of World Gone Wild: A Survivor's Guide to Post-Apocalyptic Movies and the upcoming book The Good, the Tough and the Deadly: Action Movies and Stars, coming April, 2016 from Schiffer Publishing.